Organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to feed demand worldwide, ruining ecosystems and communities. Can it be stopped?
Transnational security investigator Abdelkader Abderrahmane set out from the Moroccan city of Kenitra with two research assistants to inspect sand-mining sites on the Atlantic Ocean coast. They drove across the dry, flat terrain for six kilometers, the last stretch on a rutted dirt road that had them crawling in low gear, windows closed against the hot dust. The beach dunes where they were headed lay beyond a rise. As they approached, a man wearing a gendarme cap suddenly appeared to their right, speeding toward them on an all-terrain vehicle. With angry gestures, he forced them to a stop. “Why are you here?!” he demanded. “There’s nowhere to go.” One assistant said they just wanted to visit the beach and the nearby tourist camp. The gendarme shook his head: no further.
They turned around and began to creep back down the rough road, but as soon as the gendarme was out of sight they turned off and snuck along a hidden side of the ridge. About 400 meters further they stopped and cut the engine. Abderrahmane walked quietly to the crest of the bluff to peer down, keeping low to avoid being seen. Despite all his research into illegal sand mines, he was unprepared for the scene below. Half a dozen dump trucks scattered across a deeply pitted moonscape were filled high with brown sand. Just beyond lay the light blue sea. Abderrahmane was stunned by the “major disfiguration” of the dunes, he told me later on a video call. “It was a shock.”